This Day in Walter O’Malley History:

  • The Mayor of the Borough of South Plainfield, New Jersey Robert M. Baldwin writes an open letter to Walter O’Malley encouraging him to consider the city as a site for the Dodgers. “Look at our maps, and see our location in regards to Trenton, Philadelphia and other Cities, and to top it all, no parking problems,” Baldwin writes.

  • The Dodgers score two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to defeat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-4 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The winning runs break the 22-game winning streak of Pirate reliever Elroy Face, a former Dodger minor league pitcher. Face would go 18-1 for the Pirates that season. The Dodgers needed every win that year as they would tie the Milwaukee Braves at the end of the 154-game season but would win the NL playoffs and win the 1959 World Series.

  • Walter O’Malley conducts a phone interview with Al Lohman and Roger Barkley on radio station KFI in Los Angeles. Lohman and Barkley were a long-time radio morning show team and every spring training they would broadcast from Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida.

  • In his note to Ed Merrins, golf professional at the Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles, Walter O’Malley writes, “The following you will not under any circumstances believe. At the World Series of Golf (in Akron, Ohio) last week who do you suppose won the Amateur Trophy — none other than yours truly. Incidentally, my net 75 equalled Nicklaus 75 for his opening round. The trophy is a real nice one.”

  • Walter O’Malley writes to Dr. Maurice Stauffer, Emeritus Staff, Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota: “Dear Maury, Enclosed is a short clipping about Dr. Charles Murphy, who died at the age of 95. He operated on me about 35 years ago. At the time of the operation we were having a hurricane on Long Island and the lights went out in the operating room. There was a delay until the auxiliary system went on but in the meantime I was under a local. Really, he was a dear personal friend of our family and did the emergency operation on a holiday, on Labor Day. My record of surviving surgeons has me worried about those still functioning.”